SCOTTISH regional newspaper group Johnston Press (JP) is buying the cut-price national daily the i in a £24 million deal that will mean the closure of the print edition of its sister titles the Independent and the Independent on Sunday (IoS), which will both go digital-only from next month.
JP’s chief executive, Ashley Highfield, and editor-in-chief, Jeremy Clifford, confirmed the news yesterday on social media.
The IoS’s last edition will be published on Sunday, March 20, and the Independent’s on Saturday, March 26.
The owner of the titles, ESI media, controlled by Evgeny Lebedev, confirmed the deal in a statement, which said that while a “significant number” of the i’s staff would transfer to JP, there would also be some editorial redundancies.
The i, which sells for 40p on weekdays and 50p on Saturdays, has a circulation of 275,000 – about 20 per cent of the “quality” daily market.
According to JP it made a £5.2m profit in the year to last September, with yesterday’s deal valuing it at 4.6 times that figure.
JP has not bought the i’s companion website i100.co.uk, which has been retained by ESI and will be rebranded as indy100.com to stand alongside independent.co.uk.
The new owner will instead create a new companion site for the i, branded inews.co.uk.
JP also set out plans for how it intended to run the i, which will continue to take content from Lebedev’s stable under a three-year deal.
It is understood that the sale, which must still be approved by JP shareholders, will be completed by April.
A statement on JP’s corporate website said the company intended to position the newly acquired title as a “premium brand” alongside its flagship regional titles.
It said: “The directors believe that the acquisition of [the] i would build strength into the existing portfolio of Johnston Press brands, such as The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post and the Newsletter, enabling the group to offer a package of premium brands to the market.”
It also described the combination of JP and the i as a “strong strategic fit”, adding: “[The] i will help build the group’s national print and digital display advertising revenues through access to a number of strategically important local markets and the large and attractive ABC1 demographic category, which comprises 77 per cent of [the] i’s readership, as well as a number of blue-chip advertisers, the majority of whom do not currently advertise with Johnston Press’s titles.”
Highfield added: “With our considerable digital experience the combination of Johnston Press and [the] i will also allow us to grow digital audiences and revenues through the creation of inews.co.uk.
“We are delighted with the positive reaction of shareholders to the deal and are excited by the opportunities this acquisition brings.”
In his statement, Lebedev said that Johnston Press would be “commendable owners of this great, innovative newspaper, whose success has defied industry predictions”.
And he told staff in a letter: “The newspaper industry is changing, and that change is being driven by readers. They’re showing us that the future is digital. This decision preserves the Independent brand and allows us to continue to invest in the high-quality editorial content that is attracting more and more readers to our online platforms.”
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